Juyo Ryokai with karasu-guchi

[atm]

While I am not interested in purchasing this Ryokai, I am curious about how it reached Juyo with the karasu-guchi. I had understood that to be a fatal flaw, like hagire but in the boshi. Is it because this is an outstanding example of Ryokai that even a fatal flaw like this can be overlooked in shinsa? It would seem to negatively impact the price, though. Any thoughts are appreciated.

[Lewis B]

I was looking at this blade earlier this evening and noticed the flaw. My best guess is this damage was sustained after Shinsa. It's not a forging or quenching flaw. Most likely user error caused when the blade was forced into something hard resulting in the gouge in the kissaki. 

[Ray Singer]

I am seeing a small and shallow hakobore (chip) and an adjacent scratch, not a crack.

[nulldevice]

If it is a scratch and chip it looks like it is present on both sides of blade. I thought it was a crack based on the photos and wondered if it was a fatal flaw as well. 

If so, is Ryokai a strong enough attribution to overcome such a flaw? Is it just a scratch and the pictures don't show enough detail? Maybe, it happened post-shinsa as mentioned above?

 

At 2.2m JPY, it is certainly one of the cheapest Juyo daito I've seen. Even other Ryokai Juyo seem to be upper 3-4M range for the Juyo examples I've seen. 

[atm]

AOI describes it as a karasu-guchi, which certainly isn’t to their advantage. And it does seem to be on both sides. Perhaps @Lewis B is right and it formed after shinsa. The 61st Juyo Token wasn’t that long ago. Really unfortunate if it happened in the last ten years. 

[GeorgeLuucas]

Also, it’s not shown on either oshigata. Not sure if that’s relevant or not, but maybe further implies it happened afterwards 

[DKR]

This is one of the typical blades that is better viewed live in your hand. Pictures are not enough here.

[nulldevice]

Looks like this Ryokai will get bid up quite a bit more than the 2.2M starting price. With a few days left and 46 bids, it will probably end closer to 3M than the starting 2.2M. 

[SteveM]

On 11/22/2024 at 4:35 PM, atm said:

AOI describes it as a karasu-guchi

 

Did they mention this in some correspondence? I'm looking on their site and I can't find any mention. 

 

[atm]

It was in the original listing, @SteveM, but it appears to have since been removed.